The Mother Images And The Construction Of Civil Virtues In The Wide, Wide World

Between1820and the Civil War，the rapid progress of industryand market economy helped to create an enlarged middle class in theUnited States. A civil society was still under development. Thedevelopment of capitalism divided the American society into thepublic sphere and the private sphere. Men went outside and becamethe supporter of the whole family. Women retreated from the outsideworld and remained at home to take the responsibility for children’smoral education and upbringing. In the meanwhile, the flourishing ofthe book market in the United Stated provided a new profession for theeducated females, and a number of female writers emerged at thisperiod. The ideology of Domesticity, the Cult of Womanhood andfeminism intermixed together and were reflected in the domestic novelswritten by some preeminent female writers. Susan Warner’s The Wide,Wide World is one of the most outstanding representative works duringthe19th century America. This thesis aims at probing into the motherimages and their influences upon the forming of characters and virtuesof the heroin, an orphaned girl, Ellen and studies the mother’s role inconstructing the civil virtues of a citizen. In the whole progress of Ellen’sdevelopment, many “mothers” play an indispensable part in her growthand fundamentally change her into an exemplary woman. At home,children form an intense and emotional attachment to their mothers ora primary caregiver. It is this special attachment that determines theimportance of mothers in children’s life and their development. Thedomestic novels of the19th century present the close relationshipbetween the mothers and the construction of civil virtues and stress themothers’ role in a civil society, which helped women in the United Statesgain their voting rights as citizenships in1920.